


Oughta Stay Together

by glorious_spoon



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fic [7]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 05:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13874523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: It's not the first time he's been accidentally married, but it might just be the most permanent.





	Oughta Stay Together

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr prompt for Guardians of the Galaxy/accidental mating for life. This wound up quite a bit fluffier than I was intending.

He woke to the sound of a furious, whispered argument going on above his head.

“—don’t need to tell him anything.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a great idea. How are you going to explain him _fainting_ every time you guys get separated by more than a couple of light-years, huh? ‘Oh, sorry, Quill, it’s a rare Zen-Whoberi illness that you mysteriously contracted without ever actually going near Zen-Whoberi’... seriously?”

An angry huff of breath and then Gamora said, flat and subdued, “No. That’s not what I was going to—”

“Well,” Rocket retorted. “You better come up with something quick, because I think he’s waking up. I’m going to go check the engines. Give you some privacy. _Figure it the fuck out,_ okay, because I’m not dealing with this again.”

There was the soft patter of his retreating footsteps, followed by the metallic _clang_ of a door slamming shut. With an effort, Peter managed to peel his eyes open. They felt like they’d been glued together. He actually felt worse now that he did after the fight with Ronan, which was saying something.

Gamora leaned into his field of vision, looking almost as bad as he felt, although much more attractively. Her hair was loose, and there were grayish thumbprints of bruises under her eyes. “Hi,” she said softly. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Peter said, levering himself painfully upright. He almost tilted off of the bed, and she reached out to steady him with small, strong hands. At her touch, some of his dizziness faded, and he managed to steady himself on the edge of the mattress. “What happened?”

“How much do you remember?”

“Not much.” She was still touching him; he tried not to lean into it too obviously. “You were… you were going to meet…”

“Nebula,” Gamora supplied quietly. She wasn’t quite meeting his eyes, he realized. “I made it two systems out before, well.”

“What happened?” Peter asked again. There was a niggling suspicion starting in the back of his mind, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. There wasn’t a lot of information out there about the Zen-Whoberi. He wasn’t completely sure that Gamora was the last of them— it had always seemed kinda tacky to ask— but if she wasn’t, she was one of a tiny number of survivors.

A Zen-Whoberi illness, though, Rocket had said. And he’d heard things.

“You were… ill,” she said. “We both were. So I came back.”

She withdrew her hand, and immediately a wave of weakness crashed over him again. He keeled forward off of the mattress, spots swimming before his eyes. Gamora caught him again before he could crack his skull on the metal floor. The moment her hands touched him, the weakness receded again.

Yeah. He was pretty sure he knew what this was. “We both got sick as soon as you got out of range, huh?”

“Yes,” Gamora said. Her hands were still on his arms, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her expression, what he could see of it, was ashamed. She took a short breath, then said, “Peter, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a while since we’ve been more than a couple of light years apart, right?” Peter asked, covering one of her hands with his. That was even better. The contact helped, a lot. If they weren’t in the infirmary, he would have suggested stripping them both out of their scrubs and finding a more friendly way of getting all that skin contact that he was craving, but he wasn’t about to risk that when there was the possibility of Rocket— or worse, Drax or Mantis— wandering in. Also, Gamora looked freaked the hell out, the kind of freaked out that might end in him getting stabbed if he suggested a quickie right now.

She nodded, and finally looked up at him. “You… you know.”

“About Zen-Whoberi bonds?” He shrugged. “I’ve heard about them. Rumors, anyway. Figured they were just a legend. I guess not, huh?”

“I guess not,” Gamora muttered. “I didn’t think it would happen with you, you’re not Zen-Whoberi, it’s not… I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“We are _stuck_ together, Peter!” she hissed, sounding suddenly outraged. It was actually a relief. He knew how to deal with an angry Gamora a lot better than he knew how to deal with that sad, shame-faced version. “For life! If there’s a way of severing a bond, nobody on my world left the secret of that information behind!”

“So we’ll leave it,” Peter said, shrugging. “And next time you go out to bring supplies to your crazy assassin sister on the far edge of the galaxy, I’ll go with you instead of Rocket. Problem solved.”

“As easy as that?” Gamora asked, slightly hysterical. “Is it just that simple to you?”

“I mean, it wasn’t how I was planning on getting married,” Peter offered. It wasn’t, technically speaking, even the _first_ time he’d gotten accidentally married, although it looked to be the most permanent. That was okay. He could have done a lot worse than Gamora.

Gamora could have done a lot better than him, but she seemed to like him anyway, for some reason. Even if she did look seconds away from pulling her hair out just then. “You are such a—”

“Devilishly charming space pirate?”

“That is _not_ what I was going to say,” she said. There was still a sharpness in her tone, but he could just barely see the beginning of a smile curled into the corners of her mouth. That meant that it was probably safe to give her a hug, so he did.

She stood stiff for just a moment, then sagged into his arms, sinking onto the bed, half in his lap. The edge of her knife hilt dug into his hip, but he barely noticed over the relief of having her right there, warm and solid and comfortable. He rested his chin on the top of her head, the spicy smell of her hair cream tickling his nose. “Hey,” he offered after a little while. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Optimist,” Gamora muttered, like it was a dirty word, but she looped an arm around his shoulders and rested her head against his chest, and he was pretty sure that he was right. It was going to be just fine.


End file.
